The Book of Memory
Page 72
the whole text. Albertus’s Commentary on Aristotle’s De memoria, which also
takes up the Herennian art of memory, is translated by J. Ziolkowski in
Carruthers and Ziolkowski, eds., The Medieval Craft of Memory.
Notes to pp. 173–178
415
27. Albertus, De bono, I V . ii. a. 2. Resp. 11: ‘‘multas ingerit imagines, et ideo
confrigunt se in anima et non manent, sicut undae multae confrigunt se in
aqua.’’
28. Albertus, De bono, I V . ii. a. 2. Objection 16: ‘‘reponemus in memoria ‘aegro-
tum in lecto, qui est defuncti figura et reum ponemus astare lecto, dextra
poculum, sinistra tabulas tenentem et medicum astantem tenentem testiculos
arietinos,’ ut scilicet in poculo sit memoria veneni, quod propinavit et in
tabulis memoria haereditatis sit, quas subscripsit, et in medico figura sit
accusatoris et in testiculis figura testium consciorum et in ariete defensio
contra reum in iudicio.’’
29. Caplan’s text, 214–215, note b. No manuscripts known to us now seem to have
the reading Albertus gives here; see the textual notes in F. Marx’s editio maior
of 1894.
30. Manuscripts of the E recension of Rhetorica ad Herennium, a twelfth-century
edition based upon a rediscovered manuscript of the fourth or fifth century,
omit altogether the reference to Agamemnon and Menelaus in Ad Her.
I I I .21.34, and introduce the adjective vagantem for Iphigenia. But E manu-
scripts read domum itionem in the exemplary verse correctly, a reading which
Albertus says that he knew but had rejected for an alternative – and wrong –
reading, domi ultionem. On the E edition, see Caplan’s introduction to the
Loeb text, and F. Marx’s preface to his editio maior, xii–xv. On the trans-
mission of the Rhetorica ad Herennium in late antiquity up to the twelfth
century, see the several essays of Taylor-Briggs.
31. This is suggested also by DiLorenzo, ‘‘The Collection Form and the Art of
Memory,’’ esp. 206–207.
32. Albertus, Postilla in Isaiam, 74. 70–76: ‘‘Unde in fabulis poetarum in Ovido
magnus Iupiter, qui deus deorum confingitur, cum Phaethontem percutere
deberet, qui caelum et terram et omnia quae in eis sunt, combusserat, iaculum
post aurem accepit, ut patenter doceret, quod iudicum est prius diligenter
audire et merita personarum et causarum ponderare et postea ferire
feriendos.’’
33. Smalley, English Friars, 134. Yates suggested that these verbal pictures might be
related to an art of memory; Art of Memory, 96–101.
34. Albertus Magnus, Postilla in Isaiam, 374. 17–22: ‘‘Duos pedes habet anima,
intellectum scilicet et affectum. Qui quando aequales sunt, quod scilicet
affectus adaequatur intellectui veritatis, homo bene ambulat. Si autem vel
ambo vel alter curvus est, intellectus scilicet per errorum et affectus per
libidinem, homo claudus est.’’ Augustine wrote famously of how charity has
two feet for running in the way of God; perhaps that is the trope which
Albertus adapts here. See Augustine’s commentary on Psalm 33:6, in which,
discussing how people draw near to God by exercising their charity, he writes:
‘‘Pedes tui, caritas tua est. Duos pedes habeto, noli esse claudus. Qui sunt duo
pedes? Duo praecepta dilectionis, Dei et proximi. Istis pedibus curre ad
Deum, accede ad illum’’; ‘‘Your feet are your charity. Make sure you have
two feet; don’t be lame. Two feet? Yes, the paired commandments of love, of
416
Notes to pp. 178–182
God and of neighbour. Run toward God on these feet, draw near to him’’
(Enarr. in Ps. 33. 10; CCSL 38, 289. 19–21; trans. Boulding). Cf. a sermon
wrongly attributed to Augustine (no. 67. 5 on Matthew 8),: ‘‘per viam Christi
quomodo debes currere? Si ambos pedes sanos habes feliciter curres. Qui sunt
isti duo pedes? Si diligis Dominum et diligis proximum’’; ‘‘in what way should
you run along the way of Christ? If you have both feet healthy you will run
happily. What are those two feet? When you love the Lord and you love your
neighbour’’ (PL 39. 1874–1875).
35. Albertus Magnus, Postilla in Isaiam, 474. 76–78: ‘‘Propter hoc etiam Venus
pingebatur, quod veste aliquantulum elevata crus revelavit, ut ad libidinem
provocaret.’’ See Smalley, English Friars, 115.
36. Yates, Art of Memory, 79. The Latin text of Albertus’s commentary is in
Borgnet, vol. 9, 97–118.
37. This gloss is discussed at length by Ward, Ciceronian Rhetoric, and Fredborg,
‘‘Commentaries by William of Champeaux.’’
38. William of Champeaux, trying to elucidate the testiculos arietinos in the
original text, points out the evident pun on testes (testicles/witnesses) but
then wonders why they are a ram’s testicles, a matter not clarified in the Ad
Herennium. He suggests it is because the aggressive nature of rams recalls the
adversarial nature of the court proceeding. See Carruthers, ‘‘Rhetorical
memoria.’’
39. DiLorenzo, ‘‘The Collection Form and the Art of Memory.’’
40. The text of Alcuin’s ‘‘Dialogue on Rhetoric and the Virtues’’ is in PL 101.
919–946; the brief discussion of memory is in col. 941. See also Howell,
Rhetoric of Alcuin and Charlemagne, whose text and translation (136–139)
I have quoted. Notice how Alcuin stresses practice in writing as one of the
disciplines of memory, an emphasis one also finds in Quintilian’s advice and
others, like Martianus Capella, deriving from the same tradition. It is worth
recalling, in this context, that Luria’s subject, S., discovered that writing
things down was useless to him in trying to forget anything. On the practical
teaching of grammar and rhetoric from late antiquity through the twelfth
century, see the essays in Lanham, Latin Grammar and Rhetoric. Many useful
materials from these centuries can also be found in Irvine, Textual Culture.
41. There is no evidence to assume that Cicero was referring specifically to the art
described in the Rhetorica ad Herennium when he said this. Yet evidently some
‘‘Method of Loci,’’ as it is now rather grandly called by psychologists, was
generally known.
42. Julius Victor, Ars rhetorica: ‘‘Ad [memoriam] obtinendam tradunt plerique
locorum et simulacrorum quasdam observationes, quae mihi non videntur
habere effectum’’; Halm, 440, lines 15–17. A translation of his remarks about
memoria is in Carruthers and Ziolkowski, eds., The Medieval Craft of Memory,
297–298.
43. Augustine, Confessiones, X . xvii; trans. Boulding.
44. Of early medieval references, Caplan (Loeb translation, xxxv) mentions only a
letter of Servatus Lupus from the early ninth century, and comments that the
Notes to pp. 182–184
417
oldest extant manuscripts belong to the ninth and tenth centuries. Taylor-
Briggs makes a strong case that the work was not taught after it was composed,
nor even much known before a fourth century edition of it was made, possibly
in North Africa, whence it came to Lombardy (Milan), perhaps with
Augustine, at the time of Ambrose’s reign as bishop. The work became
strongly influential as a taught text only after the twelfth century – that is,
wholly within a medieval and early modern ambit.
45. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, I . 20. 28–33: ‘‘Seneca se artem comparandae
memoriae traditurum facillime pollicetur: et utinam innotuisset mihi, sed
quod eam tradiderit omnino non recolo. Tullius in rhetoricis operam dedisse
[ei] uisus est; sed similibus mei multum non prodest.’’
46. Lines 2017–2019 in the edition of Faral, trans. M. F. Nims: ‘‘Tradit imagini-
bus peregrinis Tullius artem, / Qua meminisse decet; sed se docet et sibi soli /
Subtilis subtile suum quasi solus adoret.’’
47. ‘‘[M]y own subtlety may be pleasing to me and not to [Cicero]. It is beneficial
only to the one it suits, for enjoyment alone makes the power of memory
strong. Therefore have no faith in these or other notae if they are difficult for
you, or [less agreeable, minus acceptae]. But if you wish to proceed more
securely, fashion your own signs for yourself, of whatever kind your own
inclination suggests’’; lines 2020–2025, trans. Nims, with my modifications.
48. Yates, Art of Memory, 50.
49. Martianus Capella, De nuptiis, V . 538–539; trans. Johnson. A translation,
differing significantly in emphasis from Johnson’s, is in Yates, Art of
Memory, 51–52. Yates understood the references to memory places physically,
whereas Johnson understood them solely as dead metaphors or abstractions.
The best definition of topos by a modern scholar is that of Harry Caplan: ‘‘The
topos is the head under which arguments fall, the place in the memory where
the argument is to be looked for and found, ready for use’’ (Of Eloquence, 83).
Cf. Cicero, Topica, II. 8: ‘‘It is easy to find things that are hidden if the hiding
place is pointed out and marked; similarly if we wish to track down some
argument we ought to know the places or topics: for that is the name given by
Aristotle to the ‘regions’ [quasi sedes, ‘‘seats of a kind’’] from which arguments
are drawn’’; trans. Hubbell, LCL.
50. Martianus Capella, De nuptiis, V . 539, lines 19–23: ‘‘nec uoce magna legenda
sunt, sed murmure potius meditanda; et nocte magis quam interdiu maturius
excitari memoriam manifestum est, cum et late silentium iuuat, nec foras
sensibus auocatur intentio’’; ‘‘[texts] are not read out in a loud voice, but are
better meditated upon in a murmur, and it is plain that memory is more
readily stimulated at night than during the day, when the silence on all sides
also helps, nor is concentration distracted by sensations from outside’’; trans.
Johnson. Riche´ discusses the volume-level of early monastic students,
Education and Culture, esp. 117–119, 465–466. The association of voice-level
with different reading functions is discussed at length in Chapter 5, below.
51. On the iconoclastic issues for the Carolingian court (stemming in part from a
famous letter of Pope Gregory I about the appropriateness of physical images
418
Notes to pp. 185–189
in churches), see Chazelle, ‘‘Pictures, Books, and the Illiterate,’’ and Kessler,
‘‘Turning a Blind Eye.’’ As Kessler succinctly says, ‘‘[m]edieval art theory
distinguished pictures seen by physical sight from the mental images they
were intended to evoke’’ (413). This crucial distinction is obscured by their use
of such words as imagines and pingere for both, but Western scholars none-
theless consistently made it in their writings on the subject. A physical image
can only start off a mental procedure, which includes forming the mental
images or phantasms that in turn are essential to the machinery of thinking.
The nature and use of mental imagining in monastic meditation from John
Cassian onward is a major subject of my Craft of Thought.
52. Boncompagno’s memory advice is translated by S. Gallagher in Carruthers
and Ziolkowski, eds., The Medieval Craft of Memory. See also Carruthers,
‘‘Boncompagno at the Cutting-Edge of Rhetoric.’’
53. Inst. orat., V I . ii. 31.
54. Inst. orat., X . vii. 15.
55. I will return to this point in Chapter 7. The formative modern discussion of
late medieval diagrams is that of Saxl, ‘‘A Spiritual Encyclopaedia.’’ Saxl does
not make any connection of these to the mnemonic technique of imagines
rerum, however. I discussed these matters in much greater depth in The Craft
of Thought, especially chapters 2–4, and the additional bibliography given
there.
56. G. R. Evans, ‘‘Two Aspects of Memoria,’’ 278.
57. On the curriculum at Padua, the influence of Boncompagno da Signa, and
Albertus Magnus’s possible studies there, see Siraisi, Arts and Sciences at
Padua, esp. 37–43, 109–117. Albertus need not, of course, have been at
Padua to study the recent translations of Aristotle; what is important is that
he was their early, influential commentator and champion. About all we know
of Albertus in Italy is that he says he was there, but he does not mention where
he was and what he studied.
58. This history can be found in Ward, Ciceronian Rhetoric, and in my essay on
the medieval transmission of Herennian and other ancient mnemotechnic in
Cox and Ward, The Rhetoric of Cicero. The earliest extant full gloss on the Ad
Herennium was compiled in the eleventh century by a ‘‘Magister
Manegaldus’’; it exists now in only one manuscript, in which the section on
memoria is missing.
59. Thierry of Chartres, Latin Rhetorical Commentaries, 27, 307n. Fredborg’s
introduction sets forth the evidence of composition and date, and discusses
both Thierry’s sources and the influence of his commentaries on later writers.
60. Thierry of Chartres, Latin Rhetorical Commentaries, 306. 20–21: ‘‘Nota ad
carmina poetarum in memoria retinenda verborum memoriam plus quam ad
causas valere’’; ‘‘Note that memory for words is more valuable for retaining
the songs of poets in memory than for orational themes.’’
61. Thierry of Chartres, Latin Rhetorical Commentaries, 307. 31–36.
62. ‘ Intervalla, id est locorum distenda . . . Confunditur aspectus ex re visa aspectui
nimium appropinquata vel ab eo nimium remota’’; Thierry of Chartres, Latin
Notes to pp. 190–194
419
Rhetorical Commentaries, 305. 70–72. In this gloss, Thierry shows he understood
better than many later writers on the Ad Herennium what the intervalla were.
63. See D’Alverny, ‘‘Translations and Translators.’’
64. See Stump, Dialectic and its Place in the Development of Logic, and her
introduction to her edition of Boethius’s De differentiis topicis. Rossi, Logic
and the Art of Memory, traces this ancient connection through the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries into the late seventeenth-century debates over the
nature and possibility of universal and/or real language. See also Lewis,
Language, Mind, and Nature, and ‘‘The Best Mnemonicall Expedient.’’
65. ‘‘[M]emoria dicendi est pars dyalectica sicut retorice’’; Bodleian Library,
MS. lat. class. d. 36, fo. 61, col. b. See also Carruthers in Cox and Ward,
The
Rhetoric of Cicero.
66. Yates, Art of Memory, 73. Yates underestimates the constant alliance of loca-
tional memory training with dialectic as well as rhetoric, and thus its strong
identification with reasoned investigation and invention throughout the
Middle Ages, not just after the thirteenth-century triad of Albertus,
Aquinas, and Ramon Lull.
67. Caplan, Introduction to the Loeb Rhetorica ad Herennium, xxxv. Jean
d’Antioche’s ‘ Rhe´torique de Ciceŕon,’’ from Museé Conde´ MS. 590, is described
by Delisle.
68. On the spread of vernacular translations of Cicero in Italy during the late
Middle Ages see Cox, ‘‘Ciceronian Rhetoric in Late Medieval Italy,’’ which
contains a descriptive repertorium of the earliest works. They include several
‘‘tratatelli’ (little treatises) on memory arts, which circulated independently of
comprehensive arts of rhetoric and oratory.
69. The roll of Dominicans is impressive. In addition to the thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century writers mentioned in this chapter (Albertus Magnus,
Thomas Aquinas, and Jacopa da Cessola) it includes Peter of Ravenna, the
author of Fenix, who adapted the architectural mnemonic to a specifically
Gothic setting. Fenix was first published in Venice in 1491, in an English
translation finally in 1548, and it was one of the most widely published of the
Renaissance treatises on ars memorativa. Peter began his life as a lay jurist, but
became a Dominican friar. Johannes Host von Romberch, author of the
Congestorium to which I have already alluded, was a German Dominican of
the early sixteenth century. The three great authorities on the art of memory
to which these Renaissance writers pay homage are Aristotle, Cicero, and
Thomas Aquinas.
70. See the critical edition of Fiore di rettorica edited by Speroni 1994; the
independence of the memoria section is discussed in xviii–xix, ccxli–ccxlii.
Caplan makes the attribution to Bono Giamboni (‘‘Introduction,’’ xxxv).
Rossi, Logic and the Art of Memory, 205, agrees that the vernacular translation
which circulated as a preface to the Ammaestramenti was taken from the Fiore
di rettorica of Bono Giamboni (see next note).
71. Ammaestramenti degli antichi: ‘‘Ma se l’uomo ha in se senno di saper bene in
sulle cose vedere, e ancora in se senno e giustizia, cioè ferma volontà di volere le